Application Note: Heterogeneous Integration of a Microelectronic Driver and Silicon Photonic Device for Data Communications Applications

Prepared by Robert Mallard, CMC Microsystems; Zheng Yong, Stefan Shopov, Sorin Voinigescu, Joyce Poon, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, and Terence Collier, CVInc. 

This application note provides a general overview of a method for the fabrication of an electro-optic transmitter consisting of a silicon photonic (Si-P) modulator and an RF driver based on a 28 nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) CMOS technology. It specifically focuses on the chip integration architecture, in which a die-level flip chip process is used to bond a CMOS driver directly on the photonic chip. The performance of a transmitter that is fabricated using this approach is demonstrated.